Alleluia! And about time too!

The government have announced that SATs testing for Year 9 have been scrapped with immediate effect - and with it the Shakespeare Paper that tested our 14 year-olds' knowledge of two scenes from a selected Shakespeare play - to be replaced by a system of sampling, where a small proportion of pupils are tested each year to measure educational standards.

In 2009, the plays were to be ROMEO AND JULIET and THE TEMPEST, both of which are currently on tour with S4K.

So instead of forcing teachers to panic about league tables and "teaching to the test", teachers have at last been given back the power to do what they do best: teach!

No doubt, many teachers will be scrabbling to reschedule their teaching plans for Year 9 - and we're not sure how helpful Shakespeare for All Ages and Stages (the "fantastic" national strategies, teaching frameworks and lesson plans document that feeds our children regular doses of the Bard from ages 4 to 16) will be.

We are on record as saying: "We at S4K are against SATs, the over-testing of our children in schools, the teaching of Shakespeare at every age age level, the written Shakespeare exam at Key Stage Three and most importantly the complete absence of creativity and culture at the heart of our education system."

What we do know is that S4K remains the best way to introduce children of ALL ages and ability levels to help them gain a genuine knowledge and understanding of the works of William Shakespeare.

The full press statement from the Department of Children, Families and Schools can be found by clicking this link.